Thursday, September 16, 2004

Bush is not as dumb as his detractors allege. "He was just badly brought up, with no discipline, and no compassion."
Yoshi Tsurumi

George W. Bush was one of Tsurumi's student at Harvard business school. When Bush became president Tsurumi was motivated to become an American citizen. He thought, and quite rightly, that as an immigrant he wouldn't have the right to speak freely. Here are some very scary quotes from a Salon interview.

"He showed pathological lying habits and was in denial when challenged on his prejudices and biases. He would even deny saying something he just said 30 seconds ago. He was famous for that. Students jumped on him; I challenged him."
When asked to explain a particular comment, said Tsurumi, Bush would respond, "Oh, I never said that."

'The government doesn't have to help poor people -- because they are lazy.' I said, 'Well, could you explain that assumption?' Not only could he not explain it, he started backtracking on it, saying, 'No, I didn't say that.'"

"We were in a discussion of the New Deal, and he called Franklin Roosevelt's policies 'socialism.' He denounced labor unions, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Medicare, Social Security, you name it. He denounced the civil rights movement as socialism. To him, socialism and communism were the same thing. And when challenged to explain his prejudice, he could not defend his argument, either ideologically, polemically or academically."

"In class, he couldn't challenge them. But after class, he sometimes came up to me in the hallway and started bad-mouthing those students who had challenged him. He would complain that someone was drinking too much. It was innuendo and lies. So that's how I knew, behind his smile and his smirk, that he was a very insecure, cunning and vengeful guy."

'Lucky you. I understand there is a long waiting list for it. How'd you get in?' When he told me, he didn't seem ashamed or embarrassed. He thought he was entitled to all kinds of privileges and special deals. He was not the only one trying to twist all their connections to avoid Vietnam. But then, he was fanatically for the war."

These anecdotes won't get him out of office. Many people either don't care about these things or they wish that they could be as loutish as Bush and get away with it. Only a good campaign with a coherent message will get rid of Bush. Oh well, I guess we're toast.